Italy Masked Finances Worse Than Greece - Pangalos

Italy did more than Greece to mask the state of its finances to secure euro zone entry, Greek Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos said, adding that Germany's history made it ill-placed to criticise his country.

"You simply put some amounts of money in the next year ... it is what everybody did and Greece did it to a lesser extent than Italy for example," Pangalos said in an interview with BBC World Service radio broadcast on Wednesday.

Pangalos criticised Germany's attitude towards the Greek crisis, saying Athens had never received compensation for the economic impact of the Nazi occupation during World War Two.
"They took away the Greek gold that was at the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back. This is an issue that has to be faced sometime in the future," he said.
"I don't say they have to give back the money necessarily but they have at least to say 'thanks'," he said. "And they shouldn't complain so much about stealing and not being very specific about economic dealings."

"The quality of leadership today in the Union is very, very poor indeed," he said, adding that it had been better in the 1980s when Jacques Delors headed the European Commission and Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterrand and Margaret Thatcher were in power in Germany, France and Britain.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/24/business/business-uk-greece-pangalos.html?_r=1&dbk

________________________
Μια "πολιτική" κουβέντα: αυτά του είπε να πει εχθές ο Καρατζαφύρερ - δεν κάνω καθόλου πλάκα, αυτό έγινε εχθές στη Βουλή απλά τα άκουγε ο παριστάμενος Παπακωνσταντίνου στη συζήτηση του Σ/Ν για την "νέα" ΕΣΥΕ.
Ο λόγος που το αναρτώ είναι γιατί όλα τα διεθνή μήντια το αναπαράγουν σήμερα. Λογικά αύριο θα το έχουν τα εγχώρια κανάλια και πιθανότατα πολλοί αύριο θα πανηγυρίζουν όταν μάθουν πως ο Θεόδωρος κατατρόπωσε τους ξένους.
Προηγουμένως οι Φ(ρ)ιτς είχαν επιτεθεί άνανδρα - αλά Τζερόνιμο - υποβαθμίζοντας τεσσερις (4) ελληνικότατες τράπεζες (λινκ).